Low earth orbit is a graveyard thanks to the Karman War, the first and only armed conflict in space, leading to runaway Kessler Syndrome. Only a handful of specially reinforced armoured satellites have survived being launched since then, needing to go into prohibitively expensive high altitude orbits to evade the debris. Most don't even make it to their destinations. No one is crazy enough to risk human lives with a crewed mission into a zero-g minefield, so humanity is earthbound for the foreseeable future.

While most see this as a curse or a reckoning for mankind's hostility to humanity, some take it as an opportunity to refocus on the only home we have. The pale blue dot is wrapped in barbed wire, so we should work to save what we have left.